Quest for Fuel
Our Car Tour vehicles were running low on bio-diesel by the time we arrived in Sacramento so we had to call in reinforcements. The below details Dave’s (AKA: Our Knight in Shining Armor) journey from the Bay Area to Sacramento to provide us with precious gallons of biodiesel.
“Seemed like it would be easy -- I looked up a list of biodiesel outlets on the web. I found a place in Martinez that sold B100. So off I went.
Lo and behold, the address was just someone's house...my research on the web earlier cautioned against buying homebrew, and the idea of knocking on someone's door unannounced seemed sketchy. Fortunately I found another place on the same road. No problem, right?
As I drove, the road was heading towards the refineries. I worried I was going from someone's doorstep to a place that only sold fuel by the truckload. The good news was: this place was an actual gas station. The bad news was that when I asked if they had biodiesel, the answer was "not yet."
Several calls into other stations in American Canyon and Woodland turned up similar responses. Finally, I was able to persuade a guy in San Rafael to stay open long enough for me to get there. I found the guy, a cheery Englishman named Bryn Deaver, standing by his older-model Mercedes with the trunk open. Standing there on the side of the road in the middle of the night, Bryn said he felt like we should be trafficking something more illicit than biodiesel. Bryn only had ten gallons. I took all ten, thankful to have finally found him.
Bryn and his wife are trying to set up a biodiesel operation in San Rafael, “Bio-Fuels of Marin.” City zoning rules require it to be located in the industrial part of the city, and if you know San Rafael, there isn't much heavy industry there. But the city was generally supportive of their effort, so they just need to find a couple hundred square feet somewhere to get going.
Bryn said his faith tells him the world is one country and humanity is one people, and it's just not good to suck the world dry of oil. But he loves driving cars, so biodiesel seemed like a good way to mitigate the damage. So, with two full cans of biodiesel, I headed to Sacramento…mission accomplished (for now at least).
posted by Car Tour Team | Saturday, September 16 | Link to this post
